


Paper And Candy Hearts

by alnima



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Kid Harry, M/M, Niall forgets Valentine's day, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alnima/pseuds/alnima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall enrolls his son, Harry's help in coming up with a way to make Valentine's Day special for Louis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper And Candy Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't know or own anyone. This work is my own and it is not featured on any other site, nor does anyone have my permission to repost it in its entirety. Thank you!!!

Niall’s not sure why he thinks this is a good idea; he’s tired and didn’t realize it was Valentine’s Day until last minute. He doesn’t know how he missed it; Louis has been sending him the rose and pink heart with the yellow ribbon emoji everyday for the past week (he thought it was Louis’ new way of saying he loved him, the week before he sent him the whale and smiling pile of poop), he had been buying bags and bags of candy, filling up bowls to leave around the house. Niall realizes, belatedly, that he must have missed the fact they were all pink and red and covered in hearts. 

He’s married to Louis and the boy does a lot of weird shit. 

But the thing is, Niall wasn’t paying attention to the date. It’s February and he only has to remember Harry’s birthday and after that he’s in the clear, there isn’t a sporting event on TV so how is he supposed to know what day it is. 

He figures it out though, of course. He’s not stupid enough to miss the date when Harry gets in the car after school brandishing a fancy shoebox decorated in glitter and heart stickers as well as his name. He’s confused, wonders why Harry has a box, voices his confusion out loud, and watches as he pulls out little bags of candy and valentine cards from his box. 

He tells Niall about how he asked six different people to be his girlfriend and boyfriend and wound up with four people saying yes. 

“What are you going to do with so many relationships?” Niall asks, smiling at Harry through the rear view mirror when the stop at the light. “It must be hard to maintain.”

Harry shrugs. “I gave them candy and wrote two x’s after my name instead of just one.” 

Niall listens to Harry rattle off about how he’s going to manage all his girlfriends and boyfriends, says that it’ll be easy if Louis continues to give him candy. He listens, he does, but in his head he’s mapping out the quickest way to come up with something to do for Louis. 

~~~~~ 

He starts with baking cookies, finding sugar cookie dough hidden in the cabinets. He says a silent thank you that Louis and Harry love to bake together. Thanks his lucky stars that he’s able to find icing and different kinds of decorations that he can use to put on top. 

It’s easy to make, turns it into an activity to do with Harry. He rolls the dough out on the counter, using heart shaped cookie cutters to turn the cookies into hearts. Harry’s excited about the idea, loves when his parents bring out the baked goods. 

Niall glances at the clock as they work, making note that they only have a few short hours to get the job done before Louis walks in the door, expecting a Valentine’s Day treat from his loved ones. 

~~~~~ 

“Why are we doing this?” Harry asks. 

Niall lays out colored paper out on the table, drops down a few markers, tape, and scissors before he sits down next to Harry. “Your father will want a card for today, right? So I thought we could make him a card while the cookies bake, we have three batches to cook and cool down which is just enough time for card making, right?”

“Right,” Harry says, nodding his head. 

Niall gets to work, grabbing the purple colored paper, folding it in half and cutting out the corners to make a heart shape. He uses the pink paper to cut out a bunch of little tiny hearts, taping them onto the surface of the card. He writes ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ on the outside, ‘made by Niall’ on the other side. 

He struggles over what to write for his note, tapping the marker against the table while he thinks. He looks over at Harry, sees that he’s working on drawing a thousand hearts onto the card. 

“What are you going to write inside?” Niall asks, not under the pretense of stealing his son’s ideas, it’s definitely just curiosity. 

“I already wrote it,” Harry says, trading the red marker for the blue. “I wrote that he was the bestest Daddy in the whole world and that I love him.”

“That’s good,” Niall says, opening his own card to begin writing his message for Louis. 

~~~~~

Decorating cookies is messy but fun, Niall makes a note to ask if he can help next time Louis and Harry are locked in the kitchen for an afternoon. He finds that his son knows a lot more about being in the kitchen than he does. 

(“We only have vanilla icing,” Niall groans, dropping the tub onto the counter. Well, I guess white is an okay color.” 

“Daddy puts coloring in to make it pretty colors,” Harry says. 

“Coloring?” Niall questions, turning back to look in the pantry once more, finding tiny little bottles of food coloring. He reads the directions on the back, notes that they work in altering the color of different foods. 

Niall tries not to let his embarrassment show too much when he realizes that his six year old son is capable of understanding what coloring could do for the icing and he couldn’t.)

But it’s mostly fun, dividing the batch in half so he and Harry can get the same amount done. They make pink, purple, and red icing. Niall tries to make green but Harry informs him that’s against the holiday’s rules. 

Harry’s in the middle of dropping chocolate sprinkles onto his cookies when he asks, “Did you get Daddy flowers?”

“Nope,” Niall says, putting his pink and purple frosted cookie onto the plate with the others. 

“Oh no,” Harry says, shaking his head at Niall. 

“Oh no? Oh no? What do you mean oh no?”

“You’re supposed to get flowers. Daddy is not going to be happy,” Harry says, sighing. 

Niall swallows the lump in his throat and hopes that Harry is wrong. 

~~~~~

Louis arrives home carrying an army supply of gifts. He brings home a stuffed bear with a heart and a box of candy for Harry. He gives Niall multiple bags of candy, knowing that he’ll eat it all shortly; he has flowers and a gift bag. 

Niall feels embarrassed next to his small, homemade, last minute gifts. 

They gather around the couch, Louis and Harry sitting down on the furniture while Niall sits on the floor in front of them. He feels on display as he opens the gift from Louis, it’s nothing major, nothing that would excite anyone else. But for Niall it’s everything. It’s a pack of guitar picks, custom made to have Harry and Louis’ names on them with hearts on the other side. Niall only plays guitar for the two of them and no one else. 

He slides his finger across one of them, squeezes it tightly in his hand and smiles up at Louis, and feels as his eyes try to water. He releases a deep breath. 

“Thank you, this is—these are amazing.”

Louis winks at him, smile softly at his reaction. 

“Now for your gift.”

“Yes, me, me, me,” Louis chants, clapping his hands together. 

“We made you cards,” Niall says, producing both his and Harry’s from his own bag, passing them towards Louis. 

“Oh wow,” Louis says, taking his time to look at each of them, to read the notes left inside of them. “These are great, you know how much I love cards.”

“I know, homemade is very important to you, which is why we also made you cookies!” Niall passes the plate over towards Louis, picking it up off the table and placing it on Louis’ lap. “They’re sugar cookies and we decorated each of them.”

“With love,” Harry adds, nodding his head seriously. 

“And I got you this little box of candy hearts,” Niall says, pulling the box out of his pocket. He nabbed it from Harry’s valentine box, vowing to replace it first thing tomorrow. He didn’t have time to go to the story, wanted to look like he worked hard on Louis’ gift. 

Louis reaches out, kisses Niall before he takes the candy. “You’re spoiling me,” he says. 

“You deserve it,” Niall says, feeling a wave of relief rush through him that Louis is pleased with his gifts. 

“To Harry from Liam,” Louis reads, flipping the box around to show Niall the back of the candy. 

“Hey, that’s from one of my boyfriends,” Harry says, snatching the candy out of Louis’ hands. “Why would you take that Daddy?”

“I don’t know what came over me,” Louis says, smirking at Niall. 

Niall swallows thickly, watching as Harry exits the room. “I can explain that,” Niall says, scratching at the back of his neck. 

“Okay,” Louis prompts, waving his hand to show Niall he can continue. He sits back on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest as he watches Niall. 

“I’m guessing that I thought it was mine won’t work in this situation.”

“No.”

“Right, well, so the truth would be that I kind of, maybe, possibly, just a little bit forgot that today was Valentine’s Day.”

“That much would be obvious,” Louis says, smiling. 

“But I still love you, a lot.” 

“Mhm.” 

“No, I do,” Niall says, moving so he’s kneeling down in front of Louis. “I swear that I do, and you know that I do.” 

“That’s what your card said, that you love me.” 

Niall flushes, remembering the three simple words he wrote inside Louis’ card. He could have written more words that have ever been written inside the card to explain just how much he loves Louis and everything about him. He could have gone into detail, used bullet points and references to show support for every reason that he can think of. He’d write sonnets greater than Shakespeare, write lyrics better than the world’s greatest love songs to tell Louis just how much he means to him. But he went simple. 

Louis is the one who lives for moments like this, lives for times where he can make a grand gesture, where he can prove himself in loud ways that match his personality. 

That’s Louis. 

But it’s not Niall. 

Niall proves his love in quieter ways, small gestures with quiet words and soft touches; he doesn’t need a day, just one day a year to show Louis that he cares. 

But he thinks that maybe this one time he can do something that’s a little less Niall and a little more Louis. 

“When we first met you were standing in the middle of the quad, yelling at Nick about something, stabbing your finger into his chest. I still to this day don’t know what you were arguing about but I remember seeing you in your black skinny jeans, tank with the hoodie over it, and that maroon beanie on. I thought you were gorgeous. I told Sean that and he thought I was mental, thought I was even crazier when I followed you around campus for three months before I worked up the courage to talk to you. I nearly cried tears of joy after the first time we kissed, three weeks after I had asked you out. I thought it was never going to come, and I had to kiss you again so you wouldn’t tell that I was tearing up, honest to fucking god tears forming in my eyes because you kissed me. 

I’ve spent nine years being in love with you and I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else. I can’t tell you how much that I care about you, I can’t buy anything to show you, all I can do is tell you. I forgot Valentine’s Day, I don’t pay attention to dates, and I didn’t remember to buy you anything, and I’m so fucking sorry about that. But I love you, and that’s the only thing I can give to you,” Niall says earnestly, hoping and praying that it’s enough for Louis. 

“Can I tell you something now?” Louis asks, unfolding his arms and bringing his face closer to Niall’s. 

“Yes, please, anything.”

“Nine years and you haven’t remembered Valentine’s Day once.”

Niall opens his mouth to refute that statement, doesn’t believe that Louis is telling the truth, but he closes before words can come out. 

“Our first year together you made me a paper heart card with printer paper that you stole at the library and colored it in with highlighters. The next year you made me a paper card, and the year after that and the one after that, and so on until today. The second forgotten Valentine’s Day is the one where you started telling me that you loved me, and each year you bring something new, this year it was stolen candy from our son.”

“I didn’t think a kid would write their name on it,” Niall says, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat. 

“The point is that I knew you’d forget. You never remember and then you never remember that you never remember. And, of course I love you, too,” Louis says, smiling briefly before he presses his lips against Niall’s. 

Niall falters for a second before he brings his hands up to cup Louis’ jaw, brushing a hand back until it’s resting on the back of his neck. Their mouths move together in perfect sync, a kiss perfected over the years, one that still brings butterflies to Niall’s stomach. 

He pulls away, shifting his face around so he can kiss Louis’ cheek. He wants to kiss him again; wants to kiss Louis until his face is blue and his lungs are aching. He’s about to pull him back in for another kiss…until he remembers what Louis just said. 

“Wait, so you’ve heard my I love you speech before?”

“Eight different time, but I love to hear again and again,” Louis replies before connecting their lips together again.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [tumblr](http://www.alnimawrites.tumblr.com) if you want to yell at me about this or anything :).


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